England still winning the RWC at a canter - The RWC phase

Assuming and currently it is quite a big assumption England get through group I can't see them winning QF against whoever they face. Bloody hopeless

As if people don't dislike us enough? We don't want to be scoring lucky tries against plucky underdogs!

Oh dear. Youngs. England's attacking speed slows down by 40%

Don't worry - still plenty of time to lose

How was that not a scrum pen to England?

Kick it away. Kick it away. Kick it away.

To be fair, Japan have been offside all game.

FFS, attacking and kick it away. Again
Yet again.

How many times have we knocked on or kicked away in good positions? It is maddening.

And another attack ends in a knock-on - at least they ran it I suppose

Japan tiring, but England not yet taking full advantage.

Need to attack this scrum. We should have had a penalty in the last one, we could effectively kill the game if we can get a score here.

Cumbrian wrote:How many times have we knocked on or kicked away in good positions?  It is maddening.  

Too many to count

commentators say take the positives....it is very hard

Think he was being sarcastic

I've been of the opinion that this game was a horrendous banana skin and if we could get through it, we should qualify for the next round fairly comfortably.

This is the chance here, five metre scrum when we look like we've got the upper hand.

Mr Bounce wrote:Oh dear. Youngs. England's attacking speed slows down by 40%

Sped up actually. Passing accuracy is down though. He's upped the tempo and chasing down the Japanese player from that scrum has got us a 5m scrum. For the first time in a while using his experience to good effect.

Finally! A decent bit of play!

Finally - a reasonably worked try

I knew they should kick more ...

Lol. God its been so bad. Again. But we've won. Probably.

That was decent - very well done

Right, now a decent lead. Time to break loose

Attack has been better this half. Admittedly that's a low bar to step over. Those last five mins hints at us actually reaching the heady heights of average level attack. Ford with some quicker ball certainly looks happier.

It's been really bleak Sam.

Diabolical. England will win but this has been back to warm up bad

Harder not to score there than score

Proper white line fever

No 7&1/2 wrote:It's been really bleak Sam.

Thank the sweet lord the second has been better than the first half. Mind it would have struggled to be worse. Seeing some of the quality in the other groups we're going home pretty swiftly after the group stage.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:It's been really bleak Sam.

Thank the sweet lord the second has been better than the first half. Mind it would have struggled to be worse. Seeing some of the quality in the other groups we're going home pretty swiftly after the group stage.

Semi final.

I've said it before but worth repeating, where's this much improved scrum I've been reading about?

Anyone?

We are so profligate in the 22, it won't matter here, but you just know that they would still do this nonsense if it was 9-6.

not obvious - however should have had a couple of pens but ref refused to give them ...

I guess a positive is that despite the inaccuracy, we've completely dominated the second half. Japan haven't really been able to seriously threaten.

It's still way below par. And this is Japan, we're not scrumming against SA.

That's a rubbish kick.

Well we move on. Dreadful performance but we come away with a bonus point win somehow.

Good try to finish, see what happens when you play with purpose?

Bonus point win but that was as much down to Japan running out of steam.
Still a dreadful game I'm sorry to say

Blimey, a bonus point.

Very laborious stuff. That highly fortunate try probably broke Japan's spirit, and the humidity eventually sapped Japan's energy, allowing England to put up a flattering margin of victory.

I hope England don't make it to the semis because, on this evidence, the likes of France/SA/NZ/Ire will destroy England by a humiliating margin. Better to have a respectable defeat to Fiji or Aus in the QFs.

Well going on that, Wales Fiji or even Australia will thrash them in QF.

Got through some phases and finished passably well. Turgid performance but job done.

Mitchell having a shocker and us looking way more composed with Youngs on the field really is not what we need. Concerned the Youngs/Farrell combination might be making a comeback.

We have Farrell to come back in too remember. Think he needs to start either at 10 or 12.

Duty281 wrote:Blimey, a bonus point.

Very laborious stuff. That highly fortunate try probably broke Japan's spirit, and the humidity eventually sapped Japan's energy, allowing England to put up a flattering margin of victory.

I hope England don't make it to the semis because, on this evidence, the likes of France/SA/NZ/Ire will destroy England by a humiliating margin. Better to have a respectable defeat to Fiji or Aus in the QFs.

Don't be daft, how would a defeat to either of those be 'respectable'? Australia are absolutely mince, and whilst I respect the last result, I would expect us to to beat Fiji in a competitive world cup game.

Trouble is England will beat Chile anyway so whoever is 9 and 10 won't matter.

mountain man wrote:Well going on that, Wales Fiji or even Australia will thrash them in QF.

Nah Wales have been dreadful. There pet ref is English so won't be allowed to help them win undeservedly either.

Our defence looks pretty handy and the set piece game is half decent. Just need to crack the lumbering attacking play.

Cumbrian wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Blimey, a bonus point.

Very laborious stuff. That highly fortunate try probably broke Japan's spirit, and the humidity eventually sapped Japan's energy, allowing England to put up a flattering margin of victory.

I hope England don't make it to the semis because, on this evidence, the likes of France/SA/NZ/Ire will destroy England by a humiliating margin. Better to have a respectable defeat to Fiji or Aus in the QFs.

Don't be daft, how would a defeat to either of those be 'respectable'?  Australia are absolutely mince, and whilst I respect the last result, I would expect us to to beat Fiji in a competitive world cup game.  

Really? Fiji were excellent whereas England then were frankly awful.

Yes England were awful, but so were Australia, why does one matter but the other doesn't? England have lost to Fiji how many times in the last 100 years? I'm not saying it can't happen, but I'd still back us to win.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

mountain man wrote:Well going on that, Wales Fiji or even Australia will thrash them in QF.

Nah Wales have been dreadful. There pet ref is English so won't be allowed to help them win undeservedly either.

Our defence looks pretty handy and the set piece game is half decent. Just need to crack the lumbering attacking play.

Wales are dreadful. Pretty much on our level. I'd prefer to plat them than Fiji or Aus though.

Well...I can see what they were doing..but implemented poorly, kicked TOO much and Japan aren't as bad as people were suggesting.

Fitness told in the end..and we started to show rhat there actually is some attack there...just Need to see it more.

On to Chile. Less kicking please